Under order, India giving more oxygen to hospitals in capital
NEW DELHI — Under order by the Supreme Court, India’s government Thursday agreed to provide more medical oxygen to hospitals in the capital city of New Delhi, potentially easing a 2-week-old shortage that worsened the country’s exploding coronavirus crisis.
Government officials also denied reports that they have been slow in distributing life-saving medical supplies donated from abroad.
The government raised the oxygen supply to 730 tons from 490 tons per day in New Delhi as ordered by the Supreme Court. The court intervened after 12 COVID-19 patients, including a doctor, died last week at a hospital when it ran out of medical oxygen for 80 minutes.
On Wednesday night, 11 other COVID-19 patients died when pressure in an oxygen supply line stopped working at a government medical college hospital in Chengalpet in southern India, possibly because of a faulty valve, The Times of India newspaper reported.
Hospital authorities said they repaired the oxygen line last week, but that the consumption of oxygen doubled since then, the newspaper said.
The number of new confirmed cases in India on Thursday surpassed 400,000 for the second time since the devastating surge began last month.
The 412,262 new cases pushed the country’s official tally of confirmed cases to more than 21 million. The Health Ministry also reported 3,980 deaths over the past 24 hours, boosting the country’s total to 230,168. Experts believe both figures are an undercount. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, suggested a complete shutdown in India may be needed for two to four weeks to help ease the surge of infections.
Fauci also said it appears there are at least two types of virus variants circulating in India.
Prank TV show canceled:
Iraq’s media regulator canceled a prank TV show that lured guests into simulated ambushes by militants, forcing participants and viewers to relive some of the terror and fear that were widespread under the rule of the Islamic State group.
The show, Tannab Raslan, was being aired as a special during the holy month of Ramadan until Iraq’s Communication and Media Commission this week ordered it off the air.
The show, a form of reality TV, follows Iraqi celebrity guests invited to what is described as a “charity event” but then fall prey under various scenarios to a staged ambush by actors playing militants. They are later freed by other actors playing Iraqi security forces.
The ambush reenactments include fake weapons and stunt explosions while the “militants” threaten to detonate fake suicide vests with hidden cameras filming everything.
The show has raised ethics concerns and provoked outrage from angry viewers.
US praised over vaccines:
Several world leaders Thursday praised the U.S. call to remove patent protections on COVID-19 vaccines to help poor countries obtain shots.
But the proposal faces hurdles, including resistance from the pharmaceutical
industry.
Activists and humanitarian institutions cheered after the U.S. reversed course Wednesday and called for a waiver of intellectual property protections on the vaccine. The decision ultimately is up to the 164-member World Trade Organization, and if just one country votes against a waiver, the proposal will fail.
Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca — all companies with licensed COVID-19 vaccines — had no immediate comment.
Idaho school shooting:
Authorities say a sixth grade girl brought a gun to her Idaho middle school, shot and wounded two students and a custodian and then was disarmed by a teacher.
Officials said at a news conference Thursday that the three are expected to survive their injuries.
Jefferson County Sheriff Steve Anderson says the girl pulled a handgun from
her backpack and fired multiple rounds inside and outside a school in the small city of Rigby, about 95 miles southwest of Yellowstone National Park.
A female teacher disarmed the girl and held her until law enforcement arrived and took her into custody, authorities said, without giving other details.
All three victims were shot in their extremities.
Authorities say they’re investigating the motive for the attack.
Family rips Italy verdict:
The family of one of two Americans, both convicted of a fatal stabbing during a scuffle with an Italian police officer, on Thursday blasted the jury for ordering Italy’s harshest punishment of life imprisonment, a sentence frequently meted out to mobsters who assassinate state officials.
Months after the July 2019 slaying of Carabinieri Vice Brigadier Mario Cerciello Rega in Rome, prosecutors
asked for indictments for the two teenage friends from California. They described the defendants as being in cahoots from start to finish, even though only one of them wielded the knife in what their lawyers contended was in self-defense.
When trial ended Wednesday, the jury convicted both on all charges and handed down life sentences — a ruling U.S. lawyer Craig Peters called “a mockery of justice.”
Finnegan Lee Elder, now 21, said he stabbed Cerciello Rega, 35, because he feared he was being strangled as the two scuffled on a Rome street. Gabriel NataleHjorth, now 20, testified that at his friend’s request, he hid the knife in their hotel room after the stabbing.
Weinstein sues lawyer:
Harvey Weinstein wants his money back.
The convicted rapist is suing his onetime lawyer Jose Baez for breach of
contract and is seeking a refund on $1 million in legal fees he says he paid the high-profile attorney for a short stint on his legal team.
Weinstein alleges Baez was regularly preoccupied with other matters, pawned off important work on other lawyers, was often unavailable to speak with him about his New York City rape case and later provided fraudulent billing records.
Baez, a Florida-based lawyer best known for representing Casey Anthony, joined Weinstein’s defense in January 2019 and left six months later, saying the former movie mogul had tarnished their relationship by communicating only through other lawyers and by failing to abide by a fee agreement.
Weinstein, 69, was convicted in February 2020 of raping an aspiring actress in 2013 and forcibly performing oral sex on a production assistant in 2006. He is serving a 23-year sentence in state prison.